In the NY Post, Larry Brooks writes that the NHL’s proposal to the NHLPA is not the first step in a negotiation for a new CBA, it is a declaration of war.

Brooks writes, “This is not an initial good-faith proposal. This is a shot across the bow of the union and at the players by a war machine that went scorched-earth last time and can pledge to do it again any day commissioner Gary Bettman feels like it.”

He adds, “This is an immediate attempt to measure the willingness of the players to fight, to gauge their unity, to divide and conquer just the way the league succeeded the last time in busting a union undermined by enemies within.”

On the NHLPA’s response, Brooks writes “Should the NHLPA — which sat through three or four previous days of being told why the current agreement doesn’t work for one team after another — counter by proposing elimination of the cap, a payroll tax at $80 million and free agency after three years? “